Forza Horizon 3: Blizzard MountainReview

Those of you who’ve played Forza Horizon 3 might remember spotting a snow-covered peak thrusting up into the sky, deep in the distant background. You couldn’t drive there; it was merely a decorative tease.

Well, it isn’t anymore. Forza Horizon 3’s first paid expansion, Blizzard Mountain, has arrived, and has brought with it a driving experience like never before seen in the series.

And it’s very, very good.

Exit Theatre Mode

The differences between Blizzard Mountain and Forza Horizon 2’s equivalent Storm Island expansion are immediate. Storm Island features wilder and windier weather than the standard inclement conditions in Forza Horizon 2 but the environment itself is largely similar to the main game. It’s really more of the same, with the rain going sideways.

Blizzard Mountain, by contrast, is not more of the same. Or, at least, not in terms of the environment. Blizzard Mountain is, if you’ll excuse the pun, the polar opposite to Forza Horizon 3’s existing sun-scorched desert, pristine beaches, and dense bush. It’s icy roads, treacherous drops, powder-filled paddocks, and huge elevation changes.

Visually it’s amongst developer Playground Games’ best work yet, which is some achievement considering much of the landscape’s nuance is largely hidden under a thick blanket of plain white. Gum trees are dusted in snowflakes and strips of asphalt glint beneath slush-filled wheel ruts. During clear, sunny days the light beams authentically off the snow. It’s similar in some ways to the stark brightness of Forza Horizon 3’s outback area but it trades the desert’s oppressive, orange-tinted heat for a noticeably cooler feel thanks to the terrific global-illumination system.

That snow simple pickup truck.

The new weather effects (blizzards, because it’s not just a clever name) are astounding; trees rock violently, show swirls, and visibility is reduced to a few car lengths. At night, the effect is amplified. It’s a stunning spectacle to drive through, if a little nerve wracking in Horizon 3’s faster cars.

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There really isn’t any area in which Playground has skimped on detail.

Your car’s bodywork will be convincingly caked in snow as you drive around, and tyres collect snow in their tread. There’s a nice new effect for snowflakes hitting windscreens, distinct from the excellent rain effects from the main game. You’ll even find your driver is now sporting a suitably festive woolly jumper. There really isn’t any area in which Playground has skimped on detail.

It’s definitely a shame the Blizzard Mountain world itself is a standalone environment rather than more elegantly weaved into the existing world (it would’ve been nice to see how the team would’ve blended it in, like The Crew’s world) but it’s not a gripe I’ve dwelled on much.

The introduction of snow into the world of Forza Horizon 3 is much more than a cosmetic shift, too, because the driving dynamics are radically changed here in Blizzard Mountain. There’s deep snow to contend with off-road and some cars have a better time clawing through it than others; building momentum in it can be tricky. There’s a large frozen lake where grip is reduced massively and you suddenly need to begin thinking of your next move twice as early as you may be used to. There are even hazardous sections of glaze ice on many of the mountain’s courses (usually cunningly placed in braking zones or apexes) which have a similarly devastating effect on handling as Forza Motorsport 6’s standing puddles. Avoid them, because once you drop a wheel onto that ice you’re a passenger.

License to thrill.

Blizzard Mountain isn’t entirely unlike Storm Island; like its forebear it operates as a smaller, self-contained version of the main game. There are 50 roads to discover, as opposed to 488 on the Forza Horizon 3 map, but it’s smattered with a familiar assortment of race types and activities like drift zones, speed traps, danger signs, and a handful of new Bucket List challenges.

What Playground has done here, however, is shake up the progression system. Basically, it demands slightly more of us than the main game does. Rather than amassing fans on Blizzard Mountain we need to unlock stars, which are awarded for various levels of success in events. For instance, simply completing a race will net you a single star, and winning a race will score you two. To get all three stars, however, you’ll need to win and fulfil a separate objective in the process, like amassing a certain number of skill points or some such. It means the outcome of a race matters more in Blizzard Mountain than it does in the main game, and higher stakes are (almost) always a good thing.

The hurdle here is that I’ve found that sometimes the tasks are at odds with simply driving smoothly and fast, so it can be tough to dominate hard-level AI while also making sure you execute, say, 35 drifts during a sprint event. To conquer the challenges that are generally counterintuitive to quick driving I found myself dialling down the opponent AI from what I usually race against.

So long, Frosty.

There’s a real off-road flavour to Blizzard Mountain and that has informed the eight new cars included with the new map, a mix of rally monsters, trophy trucks, and utilities (the star vehicle is Ken Block’s 2016 Ford Focus RS RX, as seen in Block’s recent GYMKHANA 9 stunt special, and it’s mental). Of course, we don’t need to stick with those; all of the cars I tried from my extensive Horizon 3 garage could be fitted with snow tyres and taken out on the slopes.

If you’re more partial to Horizon 3’s road cars and urban street racing, Blizzard Mountain may not do a huge deal for you, but I do feel the drastically different environment and handling properties make this expansion pack well worth its asking price for any Forza fan.

The Verdict

Small in size compared to the full map, Forza Horizon 3: Blizzard Mountain nonetheless packs in a huge pile of fresh races and challenges. It’s kept me busy for days already, and I’ve already played Forza Horizon 3 more than any other game this year. Boasting an absolutely gorgeous environment, terrific snow effects, and just about everything else that’s made Forza Horizon 3 the best racing game this generation, Blizzard Mountain should be a compulsory stopover for anyone looking to expand the Forza Horizon 3 experience, or seeking a good reason to dive back in. The weather outside is frightful, but this game is so delightful.